TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma'an) -- Palestinians in Israel on Monday commemorated the killing of 13 civilians by Israeli forces in 2000, calling for justice for the victims, Israeli media reported.

Services were held in Umm el-Fahm, Nazareth, Kfar Kana and other Palestinian villages in the Galilee.

"Twelve years have passed and as far as we are concerned it is as if the incident happened yesterday," a spokesman for the families of the victims Ibrahim Siam said, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

"This is a wound that will not heal quickly, especially as the bottom line is that 13 young men were killed by Israeli police fire and no one has been found guilty," Said added.

Demonstrators chanted slogans and demanded that those responsible for the killings be indicted.

The Orr Commission, established following the deaths, found Israeli police incompetence and a history of discrimination against Palestinians in Israel.

Rights group Adalah represented the families of the victims before an official commission of inquiry, but in 2008 the attorney general issued a decision not to indict any of the Israeli police officers responsible for the deaths.

The killings took place in October 2000 during a series of Palestinian protests in northern Israel at the onset of the second intifada.

Around twenty percent, or 1.3 million people, of Israel's population are Palestinian.

They are largely the descendants of Palestinians that managed to remain during the 1948 war, when an estimated 700,000 were expelled from or fled their homes during fighting that would see the establishment of the state of Israel.

Rights groups say that Palestinians living in Israel face discrimination in employment, education and public funding within Israel.

The Israeli government estimates that just over 50 percent of Palestinian families in Israel live under the poverty line.

1 ) France / France

01/10/2012 18:59

Palestinian origin? no... just Palestinians. Period. And also citizens of Isra?l , but they had no choice.
Descendants? the Nakba is not "old" enough to talk about "descendants".
Indeed with all respect for Maan team the wording is too vague and almost....influenced by the hasbara...

2 ) Tobias / USA

01/10/2012 19:32

ACCEPT NEGOTIATIONS, COMPROMISE, & PEACE, as Palestinians promised in their Oslo Accords with Israel, OR Palestinians will be commemorating more "killing of civilians by Israeli forces" in some year to come !!

3 ) LOLOL ISRAEL ARABS ARE THE / MOST LIBERATED ON EARTH

01/10/2012 20:12

Rights groups say that Palestinians living in Israel face discrimination in employment, education and public funding within Israel.
MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT
DOCTORS
LAWYERS
DENTISTS
PHARMACOLOGISTS
KEEP LYING

4 ) Brian Cohen / Israel

01/10/2012 20:37

Let's see Ma'an do a poll of Arabs living in Israel and see how many of them want to live in "Palestine".
Every survey to date shows that they prefer to live in Israel.

5 ) Brian Cohendumb / U.S.A.

01/10/2012 22:13

Brian of course they would plan to live in Israel when your government Israel is terrorizing them and stealing their land every day and you have runing water. Because your water (or theirs i should say) wasn't stolen by the Israeli government and you don't have to pay unreasonable amounts of taxes and fear that the if you do anything the Israeli government doesn't like, you might be dead. who would choose this life willingly?

6 ) Colin Wright / USA

02/10/2012 00:47

To Tobias #2 'ACCEPT NEGOTIATIONS, COMPROMISE, & PEACE,
as Palestinians promised in their Oslo Accords with Israel,
OR Palestinians will be commemorating more "killing of civilians
by Israeli forces" in some year to come !!'
So...if I read this aright...you're saying, 'give us what we want or we will kill you.'

7 ) Colin Wright / USA

02/10/2012 00:48

To Brian Cohen #4: 'Let's see Ma'an do a poll of Arabs living in Israel and see how many of them want to live in "Palestine". '
They are living in Palestine. It's just under the rule of especially oppressive invaders at the moment.

8 ) Golden Dome / USA

02/10/2012 04:53

@#4: Isreal IS Palestine

9 ) ian / australia

02/10/2012 10:56

#4 Quite likely Brian, for obvious reasons. If life's OK, as it is, relatively speaking, for many Arabs in non-Apartheid Israel, why change? But what about those living in Bethlehem who have never seen al-Sakhra al-Musharafa or the Aqsa mosque or in Hebron, sealed off in no-man's-land on the Martyrs Street or evicted in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan or terrorised daily by psycho settlers in the West Bank? Where do you think a poll might find those people would all rather live? Hmmm?

10 ) AMMED M. SADEQ / PALESTINE

02/10/2012 11:14

Zionists and Israelis are killers this vulnerable people .."The Palestinian people" .. and the Palestinian people are entitled to defend himself in every way possible ..

11 ) Lana / Palestine

03/10/2012 07:31

the only dmocracy in ME , my a$$!

Name

Country

Comment

Characters

Note: Comments will be reviewed for appropriate content. Click here for more details.